


warmest war

by figure8



Category: K-pop, NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Spies & Secret Agents, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 04:55:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20325433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/figure8
Summary: “If my government has already negotiated in my favor, why am I being interrogated?”“I didn’t say that. Your future is still very much in your own hands. Here,” Lee says, sliding a small tablet towards him on the table. “Turn on the screen, Agent Huang.”Brows furrowed, Renjun presses the home button. There is a picture, full screen.Renjun’s stomach sinks.





	warmest war

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pyrophane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrophane/gifts).

> it’s the 21st already in some parts of the world so here goes  
HAPPY DAY OF THE BIRD! ash, i love you. i hope you enjoy this - writing it was like pulling teeth but retrospectively i'm relatively happy with how it came out, even though it developed a life of its own at one point.
> 
> a few things:  
\- the narrative is purposefully blurry at some points. the pov character is a master liar.  
\- i chose not to use archive warnings for this story. i personally consider that going in blind will offer you the optimum enjoyment of the plot, but if you prefer diving in with all the elements, you can jump to the end note for an additional warning. once again, half the fun of this fic is the twist, but better safe than sorry!
> 
> ❤️

_ This Morning I Pray for My Enemies _

And whom do I call my enemy?

An enemy must be worthy of engagement.

I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.

It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind. The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun,

It sees and knows everything. It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.

The door to the mind should only open from the heart:

An enemy who gets in risks the danger of becoming a friend.

— Joy Harjo

  
  


The room is big. Grey. There is a table, center. Two chairs. A steel loop protruding from the wood, for handcuffs. 

There is a man. He’s taller than Renjun, but not tall. His shoulders are wider, too. His hair is dark, neatly combed. His eyes are kind. 

“Have a seat, Huang,” the man says. Renjun arches an eyebrow. “Have a seat, please,” the man repeats. Slowly, without inflection. His voice has that smoothness that comes with rarely being disobeyed. 

Renjun sits. His eyes never leave the man. 

“My name is Mark Lee,” he says. “I work for the Canadian Government.” 

“No, you don’t,” Renjun says.

“No, I don’t,” Mark Lee smiles. “But it doesn’t matter.” 

“Well,” Renjun says, dry. “It does matter. To me.” 

Lee seems amused. “For someone with an espionage charge hanging above his head, you’re awfully bold.” 

“They sent me a CIA paper pusher who speaks Mandarin about as well as my dog,” Renjun says. “I think I’ll take my chances.” 

If he feels insulted, Lee doesn’t show it. “Who says I’m CIA?”

Renjun sneers. “Your glasses do. Also, I’ve seen your file.”

Lee cracks a notepad open, fresh blank page. “Now, that’s not playing very fair.”

“I don’t play fair,” Renjun shrugs. “I thought we established that.” 

“Let’s start again,” Lee says, in English this time. “My name is Mark Lee. You are Renjun Huang, in Canada under a work visa. It says here you’re a…”

“Data analyst,” Renjun confirms. English rolls on his tongue like gentle waves. Accentless, practiced. “You know what I’ve always found funny? Westerners, you put the first name before the family name. It sounds awful. Not to mention rude.”

“I’m aware,” Lee starts, then blinks, frowns. “As I was saying. You were brought in on suspicion of espionage.” 

Renjun uncrosses his legs. “Let’s cut the bullshit. You’re extraditing me, that’s why _ you’re _here. And Americans don’t care who’s a real spy and who’s not.”

Lee raises an eyebrow. “You’ve all but admitted you are one.”

“I’m not an idiot, I know when I’ve been made.”

_ Sold out, most likely, _Renjun fumes internally, but now is not the moment to dwell on that. His eyes linger on the door. Reinforced steel, absolutely no way out. 

“You’re wrong,” Lee says. “You’re not being whisked away to Guantanamo, this isn’t a movie. We have a deal for you.” 

Renjun would spit if he had saliva to spare. As it is, he hasn’t had water in more than thirty hours. “We don’t cut deals with Americans.” 

“Your attachment to your principles is admirable, but I can assure you it is misplaced. I didn’t make myself clear: the deal has already been brokered. Your superiors, it seems, do not intend to let you rot in jail.” Lee stops, smiles to himself. “Well, not on this continent, at least.”

Renjun inhales, mind heating up like a starting engine. He likes to think of himself as a valuable asset, but he doesn’t think he’s worth bargaining with the CIA, especially not with the trade war raging. Which means there is something else going on, and he needs to figure out what it is in the next sixty seconds. 

“If my government has already negotiated in my favor, why am I being interrogated?”

“I didn’t say that. Your future is still very much in your own hands. Here,” Lee says, sliding a small tablet towards him on the table. “Turn on the screen, Agent Huang.”

Brows furrowed, Renjun presses the home button. There is a picture, full screen. 

Renjun’s stomach sinks. 

“Do you recognize this man?” Lee asks. 

Wide smile, light brown hair falling in perfect symmetry over big eyes.

Renjun closes his eyes, opens them. Furtive, barely longer than a blink, but enough to will the panic down. 

“No,” he says. 

“Try again, Agent Huang. Think carefully.”

“I’ve never seen him in my life,” Renjun says through gritted teeth. 

Lee reaches across the table to swipe to the next picture. “This one was provided to us by your own agency, Agent Huang. Do you want to reconsider your answer?”

It’s hard to deny knowing a man you were clearly photographed talking to. Renjun considers doing it anyway. 

The pit inside him grows deeper, bottomless now, swirling black hole-like. He stares at the series of pixels in front of him, the gentle colors of Mallorca. Begonias and the sea, and warm brown eyes like molten bronze. 

“His name is Na Jaemin,” Mark Lee continues. “If that jolts your memory.” 

It would be easier to make a decision if Renjun knew what the fuckers have on him. Flying blind all he has to count on his instinct, and his sixth sense has taken a blow with the surprise he was just served on a bitter platter. 

“So, the deal,” he says, modulates his voice so that it sounds still as a calm day at sea, balanced. “It’s me ratting out people, right? Just so we’re clear, you want me to snitch.” 

“Your government is concerned about your frequentations, Agent Huang. _ We _ are concerned about our own agent. Clear a few things up for us, and we will hand you over to your people. What happens to you after that is none of my concern.”

The thing about this job is that there is no rulebook, and certainly no college degree. There is _ training, _of course, and there is even an academy; but real theory is hard-earned, on the field. Renjun learned how to shoot before he became an operative, but he learned how to lie after. 

Reading people, too, is an acquired skill. As he searches Mark Lee’s face for tells, Renjun calculates risk and reward in the back of his mind like a background program on a computer. He’s always doing two things at once, mentally. That’s what makes him a good agent. 

“He was recruiting me,” he says finally. Lee frowns, clearly taken aback. 

“I find that hard to believe. There are no records of you as a target in any of our files. If anything, before a few days ago you were suspiciously missing from most Intelligence databases we have access to, which is unusual.”

Renjun shakes his head. “It wasn’t a job. He was—it was a personal call. He was going to bring it up to his handler once he was sure.”

Mostly his bluff hangs on the assumption Jaemin is as good as Renjun believes him to be. If Renjun makes one mistake they are both done. If Jaemin has fucked up _ in the past, _they are also both done. That’s a lot on the balance that Renjun cannot control, and he’s not used to this—the lack of grip. He doesn’t like it. 

“You’re asking me to swallow a hell of a fabrication, Huang.”

“London, October 2018,” Renjun cuts him off. The best lies are augmented truths, spun truths, decorated truths. “He killed a Russian asset. That was me. I told him where to find that woman.” He can see on Lee’s face that he’s rattled. Good. “A month later, he brought in the name of a Chinese bioengineer.”

“Let me guess,” Lee deadpans. “Also you.” 

Renjun nods. “I was earning his trust. You can ask him, whatever cell you’re holding him in.”

He’s fishing with this one, provoking. Not that he believes Lee is going to give him anything, but it’s always fun to try. 

“We do not _ have _ Agent Na, Huang. He’s MIA. _ That’s _why I’m here, asking you questions.” 

As a kid, Renjun used to love theater. He was good enough on stage he considered entertainment a serious career path, for a while. That was before he fell in love with the song of bullets, but he still acts, every day of his life. 

This is the role of a lifetime. Scorned Chinese operative with a taste for luxury and freedom and sex, ready to sell blood and country to escape the jaws of totalitarianism. Americans gobble that shit up. Renjun isn’t stupid, he knows Mark Lee is razor-sharp. He has the job he has because he’s good at people, the same way Renjun has the job he has because he’s good at death and information. But all men have weaknesses. People like Mark Lee are slaves to the narrative. Confirmation bias is a terrible thing. _ Everyone, after all, wants to escape the East. _

“I want immunity,” Renjun demands. He makes his tone brash and a tad hopeful. “I have information to sell, and I can help you find your agent. But you have to produce papers that guarantee me I’m not going to be sent back to China.”

“Of course you do,” Lee laughs softly, right on the edge of mocking. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible before at least half the bargain is fulfilled.”

Renjun has no illusion he’s ever going to see an immunity deal. That is not the point. 

“You answer my questions about my agent,” Lee continues. “If any of it is useful, and if I can corroborate your story, that you were about to defect… then maybe I’ll be able to whip something up for you.” 

“Okay,” Renjun says. His tongue is sticking to the roof of his mouth. “I want a bottle of water, then. And a tuna sandwich.”

Lee pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”

“I can go without eating for much longer,” Renjun shrugs, “But I don’t see how that’s helping any of us. Water, if I’m gonna be talking, don’t you think that falls under those human rights you lot seem to be so fond of?”

He gets a glare as his only response. He’d hoped Lee would go pick up the food himself, but he knows, really, that that was a fool’s dream. Instead the man types something quick on his phone. The small window on the door slides open approximately five minutes later and a tray is passed through. There is a cup filled with coffee on it, in addition to the bottle and the sandwich. Renjun’s mouth waters. Lee takes the steaming styrofoam for himself and pushes the rest towards Renjun. The sandwich, disappointingly, is egg salad. Renjun swallows a careful gulp of liquid, lets his body reacclimate to hydration. He takes two bites from the sandwich and then tucks the plastic wrapping around it again. 

Lee pushes his slowly sliding glasses up the bridge of his nose with his thumb. “When was your last contact with agent Na?”

_ Macau, _ Renjun thinks. Jaemin’s hair was blond in Macau. On his shoulder Renjun remembers a fresh scar, still pink and raw. He had retraced it with his pointer finger and then his lips, Jaemin laughing softly at the tickling touch. His skin had tasted like salt and iodine from hours and hours spent at the beach. 

“Barcelona,” Renjun says. “In Park Guëll.”

“Did you exchange any words?”

_ This, _ Jaemin had whispered, his palm dragging down Renjun’s chest, _ it’s solid, and real. I lie for a living. I know how to pick out the truth. _

“No,” Renjun says. “It was a dead drop. He had his back to me the whole time.” 

“When did you first engage in communication with Agent Na?”

“In Busan,” Renjun says, and this time it is not a lie. 

In Busan there had been glances exchanged, the terrifying awareness of someone _ watching. _On the same street under the same neon lights, Renjun had taken one look at the pretty Korean boy on the motorcycle and had known, instinctively, that they were in the same line of work. 

“Na Jaemin hasn’t been in Busan in more than four years,” Lee frowns. 

Renjun holds his gaze, intent. “Yes.”

“You mean to tell me—?”

“You asked about first contact. He didn’t try to recruit me until much later. For a while we mostly just tried to avoid running into each other.”

“But you talked, in Busan. Why?”

“Because he was screwing with my op.” He takes the bottle again, unscrews the blue cap. They swabbed him for DNA at the police station when he first got arrested, but he still feels uneasy about leaving his genetic information on their stuff, in this building. He takes the sip anyway. “I’ll hand it to you, he’s very good. I was gathering intel, but he was there on a kill mission. We worked something out.”

By _ worked something out _ Renjun means he pointed a gun at Jaemin’s right eye and explained to him in stilted French that he could kill his target _ after _Renjun was done extracting information. Jaemin had responded in Russian, the asshole. 

Lee does not seem pleased about that. “The point of elimination is specifically to avoid foreign Intelligence interrogating our assets.”

Renjun chortles. “In his defense, I don’t think your agent had much choice. I got to his guy first.”

“You were shot twice, in the past five years.” Lee smoothes two fingers over his notepad. “Can you think of anyone who would want you dead?”

Renjun rolls his eyes. “I work for Chinese Intelligence. Someone always wants me dead.” 

In Shanghai, Jaemin had pressed the muzzle of his 9mm Beretta between Renjun’s shoulder blades, ice-cold metal burning. Renjun still feels the barrel on his back like a phantom limb when the night is black. 

Lee doesn’t seem phased. “Can you think of someone in particular?”

“I can think of a few from your agency, yes.”

_ You made things very hard for me in Busan. I should paint the wall with your brains for that. _

“But not Na Jaemin?”

“A few times.”

“But you’re not in any of his reports. No trace of you in Busan, which you claim was your first meeting.”

“Well,” Renjun says dryly, tilting his head to the side, “I can’t think he was eager to admit I squeezed his target like a juicy orange before he could make it inside the building, no.”

“When did he try to kill you?”

“In Shanghai, barely a month later. I know he didn’t have a job there.”

“He tracked you down?”

“His pride was wounded. Pride is a very stupid thing to have in this line of work. I told him so.”

Lee sounds dubious. Renjun needs to tighten his act. 

“And he didn’t kill you.”

“We came to an understanding,” Renjun explains. This much is true. “Murdering an MSS agent on Chinese soil is suicide.”

_ Let’s meet in Paris, then, _ Jaemin had joked. Half-joked. _ You speak French. No one will care, there. I’ll kill you nicely. I’ll kill you fast. _

Renjun still believes, to this day, that originally all Jaemin had felt was bloodlust. 

He has a clear memory of Paris, much later. Years later. Rifle peeking out from a Haussmanian building, Renjun is surveying a rooftop garden on the other side of the street, eyes of an eagle. 

Through the scope, Jaemin grins, all teeth. Renjun’s heartbeat slows, drops falling rhythmically on the windowsill. There is tenderness in watching your lover through a killing machine. There is tenderness, too, in touching someone with hands that are always bloody. Renjun sees the invisible imprints on Jaemin’s skin every time, his gaze black light. _ This is mine because I kept it alive when I could have killed it. _

*

* *

*

In Paris, Renjun opens the door to his hotel room and finds his suitcase disemboweled on the floor, his clothes all over the place. There is a pair of boxer briefs hanging from the ceiling fan. Jaemin is lounging in the armchair, twirling a switchblade between his pointer and thumb. 

Renjun shuts the door. “You weren’t joking.”

“I rarely do,” Jaemin grins, wolfish. 

“Let me take off my jacket,” Renjun says. “It’s an Armani. I hate getting blood on it.”

“Okay,” Jaemin says. And then he lunges. 

*

Quintessentially, every single one of their meetings has been a clash of bodies. Paris is the first time Renjun feels the shape of Jaemin’s ribs under his fingertips, two layers of clothing in between. In Havana, months later, Renjun kneels and presses his lips there, on the memory of a bruise that has long faded. Fighting is an exchange of power. 

So is sex. 

*

Renjun is staring at the ceiling. His back hurts. He was slammed onto the ground by an expert judo move, the breath punched out of his lungs. There is blood on his favorite jacket. _ Damnit. _

“I told you to give me a _ minute,_” he wheezes. Above him, one leg on each side of his sternum, Jaemin furrows his brows. “Oh, I was supposed to _ listen _ to you? Sorry.” 

He presses his knife to Renjun’s jugular. Renjun wraps his fingers around Jaemin’s wrist. 

“Why are you here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

He presses his thumb to Jaemin’s pulse point. The in and out of oxygen is steady. 

“I think that if you wanted to kill me you had ample opportunity to. This is sloppy. You’re not sloppy, usually.”

“You don’t know me,” Jaemin frowns. He looks, for the first time, maybe the tiniest bit upset. 

“So you mean to tell me you _ are _bad at your job?”

The blade digs a millimeter in. Renjun hisses. 

“I’m very good at my job,” Jaemin says. 

“You keep making rookie mistakes. I’m not working this one solo. My partner is going to find you.”

Jaemin huffs. “The blonde boy with the green shirt? Please. I could have him for breakfast.”

“Put down the knife, then, Na Jaemin.”

Jaemin freezes at the sound of his name. Renjun’s lips stretch into the widest smile. 

“You know my name,” Jaemin says slowly. 

“Yes,” Renjun says. “You Yanks, you’re not as clever as you think you are.”

“I’m not American,” Jaemin shakes his head. 

“You’re CIA.” To that there is neither denial nor confirmation. “Put down the knife, Jaemin. Fight me like a man.” 

Jaemin puts down the knife. 

*

Black eye and busted lip and fissured rib, Renjun falls in love with the way Jaemin moves—like water, untouchable, and with the confidence of a prince. 

In Paris he dances the dance of killers; in Cuba they are lovers, salsa music loud and bright, Jaemin’s smile all the same. In Kuala Lumpur when they meet again Renjun switches their roles around, gunbarrel lodged at the base of Jaemin’s spine, whisper low and heady. Jaemin is wearing a thin white linen suit. His skin shimmers under the heavy sun, sweat glistening. They fuck in Renjun’s hotel room, clothes on the floor telling the story of their impatience. 

Renjun maps out the world and he maps out Jaemin’s body, knowledge increasing with each passport stamp. In Rabat he eats lamb tajine for the first time and learns Jaemin’s legs go liquid when he’s being edged. In Hanoi he practices his Vietnamese at the street market and then later, face pressed to his pillow, Jaemin kissing his way along the knobs of Renjun’s spine—he practices his Vietnamese there, too. 

*

They don’t see each other for months at a time. Sometimes Renjun closes his eyes and pictures it; the bitterness of gunpowder and Jaemin’s skilled hands, blood on his shirt, blood on his chin—

Sometimes they cross paths unplanned. These are the bad times, when Renjun knows they’re waging war on different sides and he now has to outrun both the clock and Jaemin. Jaemin likes keeping score. He has a tattoo on his left ankle, low enough to be easily camouflaged by socks, vertical lines. The number grows as the months pass. 

_ One for every time I beat you, _ he murmurs against the side of Renjun’s neck, hand between their bodies. Renjun moans, turns to kiss him. _ I’m still winning. _

*

Mallorca is different because it is both a job and a rendezvous. For once there is no surprise: Jaemin was in the file Renjun was given. _ Jaemin _doesn’t know it is a job, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him and what he does know will, so Renjun keeps all of it from him, dutifully. 

They meet on a terrace, close enough to the water that one can hear the waves crashing gently against the shore, lovers apart then reunited on an infinite loop. There are begonias weaved all around the balustrade, fuschia vivid on white wood. Renjun doesn’t know it, but when he pulls a chair from the table Jaemin is sitting at, a flash goes off in the distance, immortalizing the moment. 

“You look well,” he says. 

“I was expecting someone,” Jaemin says, jaw tense. Renjun knocks their knees together under the table. 

“I know you’re flying to England tomorrow. Listen to me. They know you’re coming.”

The directives Renjun was given were very simple. Find Na Jaemin’s contact. Neutralize him. Meet with Na Jaemin instead, and provide him with false intel that will sabotage his London op. 

Jaemin frowns. “MI6?”

“No,” Renjun says. “The Russians. Go back to your hotel. There is an envelope waiting for you in your room.”

“You need to leave,” Jaemin says, voice urgent. “My guy is supposed to get here any minute now.”

Renjun gets up, wipes his palms on his jeans. 

“Well,” he smiles, lowering his sunglasses back onto his nose from where they were resting on his hair, “I wouldn’t count on that.”

*

In Barcelona Jaemin slams him into a wall, palm open at the base of Renjun’s throat, pressure on his collarbone. 

“You saved my life,” he pants, and then leans down to kiss Renjun hot and messy. “You saved my life,” he repeats, sounding a little bit stunned. “Why would you do that?” 

_ Because I care, _Renjun doesn’t say. 

“You owe me one, now,” he smirks. “I like having favors to spare.” 

Jaemin isn’t stupid. He doesn’t thank him verbally but he does thank him later, grip tight on Renjun’s hips, voice rough and tender and words like Matryoshka dolls—meaning containing meaning containing meaning. 

*

In Barcelona they talk, really, for the first time. They exchange inconsequential secrets like lucky coins. When Renjun switches to Korean, words smooth and round and gentle, Jaemin’s eyes glimmer in the semi-darkness. 

_ You exist on the wrong side of the equation, _ Renjun tells him, fingers dancing down the slope of his bare shoulder. _ Working against order, sowing chaos. _

Jaemin rolls onto his back, smiles at the ceiling. He takes Renjun’s hand and places it above his heart, metronome beat. 

_ Remember the first time, in France? _

Renjun bites his bottom lip, nods confusedly. 

_ Think about it. How do you think I knew where to find you? _ Jaemin asks. _ How do you think? _

*

It takes Renjun weeks and weeks of digging. He makes his way firewall after firewall, pulls out information like teeth, reconstructs the picture like a 1000 pieces puzzle. When he hits a digital wall he takes the chase to the physical world; Jaemin’s trail brings him to Manchuria. Renjun’s contact across the border is a Korean man with eyes that are always smiling, constant crescent moons. His northern accent is thick, the dialect strangely familiar to Renjun, who hasn’t spoken to anyone from the Democratic Republic since he left home more than ten years ago. 

It’s the intonation, he realizes after a few minutes talking. Jaemin speaks with the words of someone from the South but his inflexion betrays him sometimes. 

“Here’s the file you asked for,” the man from Pyongyang tells him, passing him a large manilla envelope folded in two. “With that, Donghyuck said to tell you he considers his debt is paid.” 

“Thank you, comrade,” Renjun says truthfully. The man salutes him, two fingers to the temple, before slipping back into the forest. As obscurity falls, Renjun opens the folder and flips through the pages, flashlight held between his teeth. 

There is only one picture, from almost a decade ago, and it’s in sepia and grainy but Renjun would recognize the sharp angle of Jaemin’s jaw anywhere. 

He looks regal in his brown KPAGF uniform. Renjun retraces the lines of his face with his fingertip, looks to the horizon. 

He burns the file at dawn, small fire; heart heavy, heart full. 

*

It’s easy to adapt to this new reality, because in Renjun’s compromised mind he and Jaemin have been on the same side for a long time. 

He tries to picture it, the absolute death grip one has to have on _ everything _to exist as a different person on three levels. Not just agent, not just double, but triple. 

He knows every time he has gotten to touch Jaemin has been carelessness. It’s reassuring in a horrible, perverse kind of way; to know he was not the only one to feel the pull, so devastatingly magnetic Jaemin put _ two _covers in jeopardy to taste the breath from Renjun’s lips. Something dark within him whispers that it means, most likely, than Renjun is the only one, maybe even the only one ever. It quells a hunger inside him he didn’t know existed. 

They leave clues for each other on message boards. That’s how they arrange every meeting: in cypher on an obscurely niche Reddit thread about ornithology. 

In numbers, Renjun writes _ I thought about it. I know. _He adds the GPS coordinates for a small bungalow in Macau to the custom hyperlink and presses send. 

There are two possibilities: either Renjun overstepped, in which case the road forks once again. Jaemin could meet him in Macau with guns instead of hands. Or he could simply leave Renjun to wait, anxiety gnawing at his stomach. Renjun would pick the second option, if it were him. If he was feeling particularly resentful he might even fake his death, but he doesn’t think Jaemin is the type. 

The second possibility is that Renjun read the signs correctly, in which case he’ll find a friend in Macau, perhaps a partner. There are many things Renjun could do with a CIA agent at arm’s reach. 

He tells himself it is Jaemin’s usefulness, the wasted potential that he’ll miss the most, if his worst scenario comes to fruition. It doesn’t soothe his nerves as the plane takes off. 

*

Jaemin does not show up. 

It’s not the first time he ever misses one of their secret meetings, but it is the first time he does not send a warning. Renjun’s insides twist, tighten. He repeats to himself like a mantra that if Jaemin hadn’t wanted him to know he wouldn’t have told Renjun to look. It does not ease the quiet worry, rumbling like growing thunder. 

Renjun waits in the bungalow for three days. On the fourth day, at the first hour of the morning, the sun still blood-orange red, he packs his bag and readies himself to leave. 

Jaemin knocks on the door as Renjun is zipping up his jacket. He stumbles inside, paler than the moon. His button-up is sticking to his skin, sweat-soaked. When Renjun touches his shoulder his hand comes away wet with blood. 

“You waited,” Jaemin grins, delirious. Renjun puts a palm to his forehead. He’s burning. 

“You have a fever,” Renjun answers, shaky. “Sit.”

He cleans the wound methodically. It’s not worryingly deep, but Jaemin waited too long to get it treated, and the cut is yellowing. Renjun has to break into a pharmacy at night to steal him some antibiotics. It takes days for the fever to break, during which Jaemin mumbles in his sleep in Korean, his DPR accent now unmistakable. Renjun kneels at his bedside for hours, presses cold compresses to his red face. At some point Jaemin regains enough coordination to start grabbing his hand, grip loose, holding for the sake of holding. 

On the eighth day Jaemin wakes up. He looks better—not healthy, but better. All Renjun could feed him while he was unconscious was a homemade dextrose solution, and he didn’t have a sterile environment for an IV so he had to force Jaemin’s mouth open to gently guide the liquid down. It means Jaemin is slimmer, cheekbones starting to protrude, and he must be feeling ravenous. 

“I’m going to find you some food,” Renjun tells him. While he’s at it he needs to restock on everything. He’s barely left the cabin all week, too scared of coming back to a lifeless body. Of everything, bacterial infection is a very silly way to go, for a spy. 

“Don’t,” Jaemin says hoarsely, then proceeds to choke on his lack of spit. Renjun hastily passes him a bottle of Evian with a pink straw. Jaemin gulps down half of it gratefully. 

“Slow down,” Renjun advises fondly. “Slow down, you’re going to puke.” 

Later, around a mouthful of eel, Jaemin tells him he’s been made. 

“By who?” Renjun asks, sinking feeling in his gut. 

“Seoul,” Jaemin says. “Which means Washington knows. You know how it goes.”

“What are you going to do?” Renjun asks. He sounds urgent to his own ears. He doesn’t like it. 

“Well,” Jaemin says. “For now, I’m going to kiss you.” 

“Your mouth is going to taste like fish,” Renjun laughs weakly. 

“I almost died,” Jaemin says. “I think you can endure the smell of eel for two seconds for me.” 

*

Jaemin regains his strength in a few days in the tropical warmth of the Pearl River estuary. When the cut closes completely Renjun takes him to Hac Sa, away enough from the main beach that when they finally step foot on the sand there is no one else, the only sound the crunch of the waves on the shore. In the water Jaemin looks like a child, happy and carefree and _ living. _

_ So what, _ Renjun thinks, _ if we don’t survive this? _Jaemin bathed in sunlight, smiling with too much teeth like the apex predator he very much is, close enough to touch and so, so open, so vulnerable, and willingly unshielded—it will have been worth the sacrifice. Information is currency in their profession, everyone knows that. Renjun would argue that information is paper, and trust is gold. Trust is what keeps the bank vaults full. Trust is what Jaemin gave him by meeting him in Macau, knife in his back, everything left to lose. 

*

* *

*

Mark Lee licks his fingertip before turning the page of his little notepad. He pushes his perpetually sliding glasses back up for the upteenth time. 

“Can you give me the exact date Agent Na approached you with the clear intent of recruiting you?” 

“Approximately nine months ago,” Renjun bullshits. “Sorry, I don’t keep a journal.”

Lee takes note, the _ scritch scritch _of his pen on paper the only sound in this too-big room for a split second. 

“And where did that supposed meeting take place?”

“Paris,” Renjun says. He likes the symbolism of this lie. 

“And—,” Mark Lee starts, but he doesn’t get to finish that sentence, because a siren starts ringing absurdly loudly, and then the lights go off. 

Renjun gets up immediately. The backup generator kicks in a second later, and suddenly the cell is bathed in red light. Lee is pointing his gun at him. 

“I’m unarmed,” Renjun says dryly, voice drowned by the screeching of the alarm bell. “You know that.” 

“Shut up,” Lee snaps, tense. 

Renjun hears a very loud _ boom _ from the corridor. It’s their only warning before a much louder _ boom _ resonates up close, and then the door is quite literally _ propelled _against the opposite wall in a strident metallic noise. Cement particles fill the atmosphere, everything blurring. Renjun shuts his eyes and protects his nose and mouth with his sleeve. Lee is coughing. 

Footsteps. Lee is still coughing. 

Renjun would recognize the sound of a silencer anywhere. The dull thump of a body hitting the ground, too, is not something one ever forgets. 

Renjun opens his eyes. 

Under the red light, Jaemin holsters his gun, smiles. 

Head tilted, eyebrow raised—fondly teasing. “So, are you coming?”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> additional warning for character death (not main pairing)
> 
> \--
> 
> thank you for reading!! if you liked this fic, please considering leaving a comment. feedback is food for hungry author brains ;-;


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